RING THE SEVERAL GEOLOGICAL PERIODS BELOW ENUMERATED,
E GATHERED FROM THE CHARACTER OF THEIR FOSSIL FLORA.

ON

THE PART TAKEN BY NORTH DEVON IN THE EARLIEST ENGLISH ENTERPRISES FOR THE PURPOSE OF

COLONIZING AMERICA.

BY RICHARD WILLIAM COTTON.

To Devonshire belongs the credit of having sent out the first expedition which left the shores of Great Britain for the purpose of founding a colony in the New World. The object of this paper is to show, briefly, the part taken by North Devon in that enterprise, and to throw some new light upon an incident which led to its miscarriage and retarded for about twenty years the actual settlement of the English in North America.

The expedition, which was fitted out at the cost of our brilliant countryman Sir Walter Raleigh, under a patent obtained from Queen Elizabeth, sailed from Plymouth in the year 1585, and its destination was the newly-discovered territory in North America, to which the gallantry of the Court of Elizabeth had given the name of Virginia. Sir Richard Grenville, a cousin of Sir Walter, and a North Devon man, was "general" of the fleet. That this was not a mere buccaneering expedition, as has been supposed, I think is evident from the description given of its character by an authority which I shall presently quote: the little fleet carried "one hundred householders, and many things necessary to begin a new State." The expedition, in July, landed and occupied the island of Ronoake, contiguous to a country which in the native language was called Wingandacoa. Virginia, it should be stated, has shrunk from its former limits, and the scene of this transaction lies, in reality, in what is now the State of North Carolina. Sir Richard Grenville returned to England, and arrived at Plymouth in October, and, in conjunction with Sir Walter Raleigh, seems to have at once set about making preparations for reinforcing the infant colony in the spring of the following year. The

vessels intended for this service were fitted out in the estuary of the Taw and Torridge, in the then port of Barnstaple, which Sir Richard Grenville overlooked from his house at Tapeley. They were about to carry not only provisions for the relief of the colonists in their first difficulties but additional emigrants from North Devon. This brings us to the early months of the year 1586. We will now see how it fared at this time with the settlement in Virginia, which had been planted in the previous year. I shall quote from the history of these transactions as handed down to us by William Strachey, first Secretary of the colony (permanently established some years later), and printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1849. "After the colony had laboured. . . eleaven monthes, expecting the returne of their generall with a franck and new supplye out of England, and being in some wants for necessarye and fresh victualls, had dispersed themselves into sondry parts of the countrye, the better to be fitted and accommodated with the provisions thereof. . . . about the beginning of June" they "escried a great fleet of many shippes uppon the coasts. . . found to be Sir Fraunces Drake and his company, returning home this way from the sacking of St. Domingo, Carthagena, and St. Augustine, who, sending his boats off to Roanoak, and having intelligence from the governour of the condicion of which the colony then stood, of their many wants, and daylie expectance of supply from England (the generall, by promise, appointing to have bene there by the first of the spring), Sir Fraunces Drake, much commending their patience and noble spiritts, and applauding so good an accion, consulted with his captaines, and concluded to leave them a barke of seventy tonne, called the Frauncis, to serve them upon occasions, with two pinnaces, four small boats, and two experimented sea maisters, Abraham Kendall and Griffeth Herne, to tarry with them, with a supply of collivers, hand-weapons, match, lead, tooles, apparell, and such like, with victualls for one hundred men for four monthes." But stormy weather having set in, and fears being entertained that the vessels would not find sufficient shelter to enable them to winter on that coast, "the determinacion of all was altered, and yt was conceaved more convenient to take in all the planters and come for England, which, unhappely, was accordingly performed, and soe, the 19th of June setting saile, the 27th of July they arrived in Portsmouth, Anno 1586."*

"The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia." H. S., 1849, p. 147, et seq.